Carry-On is the dumb-as-rocks holiday crowd pleaser of the year, and many involved in its execution are game for embracing the buffoonery.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra had graduated from low-budget horror and slick low-budget action films to the Hollywood studio big leagues. To be clear, this graduation implies only an elevation in budgetary cushion, as his films for Disney and Warners — Jungle Cruise and Black Adam respectively — gave up propulsive energy for glossy studio sheen. Jungle Cruise is mildly entertaining and pleasant enough, for what it’s worth. But it feels like a lazy river compared to even the lowliest of Liam Neeson thriller. And Black Adam…well, we saw how that turned out.

In returning to the high concept action-thriller in the vein of the airport novel, but doing so under the Netflix banner, Collet-Serra scales back from the Continue reading Carry-On (2024) Movie Review →